Scorned witch, vengeful victim of adultery, infanticidal murderess and….feminist? Medea’s tragic story, though centuries old, still evokes a contemporary fascination with the beguiling character and her various misfortunes. From her husband’s betrayal to the ruthless killing of her own children, Medea emerges as simultaneously defenseless yet detestably powerful, providing a paradoxical pairing that questions the idea of femininity itself.
Considering the misogynistic tendencies of ancient Greece , it is surprising that Euripides wrote Medea as charismatic a character. Daughter of King Aeëtes and a direct descendant of the sun god Helios, Medea is depicted in the play as a enchantress and/or the priestess of Hecate, the goddess of magic, from the city Colchis.
Having been renowned for her unusual cleverness, Medea’s weakness proved to be her love for Jason, a mythological hero from Greek lore. Jason and the Argonauts traveled from Iolcus to Colchis in pursuit of the Golden Fleece of which Aeëtes had possession. Medea falls in love with Jason (in other accounts, she is said to have been influenced by Hera) and defies her father by helping the hero complete his tasks. Her loyalty to Jason leads Medea to kill her own brother Absyrtus. Ostracized from her homeland, the sorceress journeys with the hero to Iolcus as his wife. Along the way, they have two sons. However, their arrival at Iolcus was not met with cheerful reception, as King Pelias refused to concur his throne to Jason. In response, Medea bewitched his daughters to murder him. The couple fled to Corinth to escape the aftermath, and it appeared that they would have their happily ever after.
Sadly, Jason leaves Medea for the Corinthian princess in a power move he implies will help elevate his own name. King Creon, the father of the new bride, banishes Medea from the land out of fear that she would lash out against the royals. Medea deceives the two men into thinking that she means to leave peacefully, but instead poisons the princess, murders the king, and then mercilessly slaughters her own sons, all to ensure that Jason will have nothing left in the world.
In many ways, Medea embodied the ancient Grecian ideal for women. Her unconditional loyalty to her husband motivated her to commit horrendous deeds such as spurning her own family and murdering innocent people. Although these acts in themselves are inherently sinful, Medea’s reasoning behind it complies with the notion that a woman is the extension of the man, and thus must do everything in her power to satisfy him. Jason, as the story pans out, seems to only seek heroic fame and status, rather than truly loving Medea. When Medea confronts him about his debt to her (seriously, he would have nothing if it were not for Medea’s help), he contends by claiming he saved her from the fringes of barbaric Colchis and that he does not want to hold responsibility for any of Medea’s actions, despite them having brought him relative fame and success.
Euripides employs an interesting dichotomy in Medea’s character. Establishing a polarized spectrum of femininity versus masculinity, Euripides portrays Medea as being capable of encompassing both. According to Greek philosophy of the time, the enchantress did not fit into the role of a “good woman” purely because of her intelligence. Medea’s great cleverness is seen as a strictly masculine trait, but she chooses to use her cunning to deceive both Jason and Creon, reinforcing negative female stereotypes of manipulation. The way she commits murder is also paradoxical. Medea chooses to murder the princess through poison but slaughters her children by hand, the former associated with underhanded femininity and the latter with straight masculinity.
Medea’s complex character is often used to affirm her insanity but it may be more of a compelling argument to credit her nuanced individuality to her implicit feminist tendencies. Refusing to submit to the patriarchy, Medea is undoubtedly a feminist figure. As she exclaims in the play, “we [women] bid the highest price in dowries just to buy some man to be dictator of our bodies […] How that compounds the wrong!” Medea questions this system of existing and the role women play in it, ultimately renouncing her own marriage to Jason as little more than a domestic oppression.
Medea is not the story of a young woman desperately in love with her husband. Nor is it one of scornful vengeance. Medea is an ode to women and their power, even if that power can create evil.
